Animal rights campaigners are outraged after a video of diners eating a live fish became a hit on the internet.

The clip, in which a part-fried fish is shown breathing and wriggling on a plate as it is eaten alive in a restaurant, has been posted on YouTube.

The Chinese 'delicacy' involves chefs cooking the body of a carp while its head is wrapped in a wet cloth to keep it breathing, before covering it in sauce and serving in on a plate.

In the YouTube video, diners can be heard laughing and joking as they prod the still-moving fish, before picking it apart with chopsticks.

Peta, the animal rights group, called the video, which had more than 120,000 views on YouTube in a week, "disgusting", reports the Daily Telegraph.

A spokesperson said: "Every decent person should be shocked when anyone mocks or abuses a helpless dying animal."

Stephen Fry recently singled out the Chinese culture as being the biggest threat to some endangered species.

"It is not very pleasant for us to single out a culture, but, if you care about lions and tigers and whales and sharks, it is the Far East and the way they eat, or the way they attempt to cure themselves, that seems to be the biggest threat," he said.

A spokesman at the Chinese embassy responded: "I don't think it is fair to accuse other cultures of having certain negative habits and traditions.

"We have our traditions, as the Spanish have bullfighting, and you, until recently, had foxhunting. We did not criticise you or the Spanish for this. Tiger bones for traditional medicine are now banned, to the suffering of the Chinese industry." -- Courtesy of Ananova.com

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